The Unusual Australian Shark Arm Murders

this week on buzzfeed and solve we go down under to examine the wacky shark arm case that captivated australia in 1935. did you say wacky i mean just it's pretty wacky well inherently any case that's titled the shark arm case there's going to be some fun to be had down the road yeah because i'm no marine biologist but sharks don't have arms now they have fins yeah an astute observation yeah so why is the arm in the title curious curious why don't we dive deep and figure it out okay in early 1935 business at sydney australia's kuji aquarium and swimming bass was floundering the world was in the depths of the great depression and aquarium owner bert hobson needed something to lure customers and keep his business afloat there's two already two sea-based puns in what are you talking about i don't know what you're talking about is this gonna be a running theme i swear it's the last one okay his spirits were buoyed when on april 18th bert and his son ron caught a 14-foot one-ton tiger shark off the coast and put it in their pool there had been an increasing wave of shark attacks and this monstrous shark was just the attraction hobson thought needed to turn the tide on his slumping enterprise about a week after catching the shark and in front of crowds of families enjoying the aquarium during a holiday weekend the behemoth suddenly began convulsing and vomiting spitting up a rat a bird and finally a human arm it's a great depression yeah you've scrapped together what little you have to take the family to the water parks for the holidays let's form some great memories as a family and that shark just starts vomiting rats in front of your children i don't think i've ever seen a shark vomit do you imagine like a shark like slumped over like a toilet is a very funny image obviously this was just in the pool i also want to know if it like the velocity of the arm coming out did it shoot out into the crowd did it hit somebody in the face or was it just like a it dribbled out like over its lips or just like you know like when you're eating and you like kind of do a half burp but a little bit comes up oh yeah yeah yeah like a chipotle burp yeah his little arm came out too much salsa hobson called the police who fished the arm out of the pool and found a large tattoo of two boxers fighting inside the forearm the shark was killed and its stomach was searched for additional remains but none were found boy last thing i would want after vomiting is to be killed yeah i mean really just a bad week for that shark the sharks just got it like his last thought had to have been like why using new fingerprinting technology the police were able to identify the arm's original operator as 45 year old jimmy smith a local paper truth describes smith as quote a well-known suburban billiard saloon keeper one time promising lightweight boxer and a man with seemingly not an enemy in the world end quote seemingly is the operative word there yeah i think so you don't get your arms cut off and fed to a shark if you're simpatico with all your pals yeah i can't say there's a lot of good relationships in your life if this is something that's happening to you in the early 1930s smith began working as a builder for one reginald holmes a well-respected member of the community on the surface but who hid undercurrents of criminal activity in addition to operating a successful boat building business holmes conducted insurance scams and organized drug deals using his speed boats to collect drugs from ships after the first building job smith plunged into more work for homes and became netted in his various illicit schemes on holmes's orders smith would scan builders out of their supplies operate homes as speed boats and was the caretaker of a pleasure boat called the pathfinder more on that later i love this guy which guy holmes holmes why wow it's 1935 he's got us a fleet of okay i do think the feedback a fleet of speed boats is something that a bond villain would have and i kind of appreciate that this guy is taking it to heart that's kind of cool i'm sure by that era's standards a speed boat is a boat that goes 11 miles an hour yeah probably not that fast but we're not mapping you know like relativity and in my brain i'm imagining miami vice but with just more burlap for the time it was a bitching boat a bit devilish of you to drop the term pleasure boat and say well we'll get back to that yeah that's a hook you in there a cliffhanger because the mind reels tell your mind to settle down it can't oh there's no settling this one down now crystal bite a pleasure boat my word smith and holmes also worked with an old chum of smiths patrick brady brady began his life of crime in world war one when he realized that he was good at forging the signatures of military generals the three men began forging checks for small amounts of money from well-off clients of homes eventually holmes and smith had a disagreement over one of the czech forgery scams and it's reported that smith began blackmailing homes hey i love this whole crew i love that these men become friends over the fact that he's like hey you know what you're really good at fortune signatures well thank you it's something i've been practicing for a while i love your fleet of speed boats these guys are scammers yeah but how do you just crack that eye how do you break the ice there oh because it's not just like out to coffee one day you're like it's gonna sound a little wild but you ever think about murder murdering a person you uh how do you feel about scams yeah i mean any sort of illicit thing because there's no linkedin for criminals where they could read the resumes of other criminals and then hire them so like how do they find each other i suppose like good app idea they're like yeah linkedin for criminal write that we should write that down we'll write that down under our schemes see put a little circle around it yeah fast forward to april 7th 11 days before bert hobson caught his tiger shark jimmy smith and patrick brady were out drinking and playing cards at the cecil hotel afterwards the two went to a small cottage that brady had in the beach community of canola it's widely thought that this was where smith met his fate a cab driver reported driving a disheveled brady from the cottage to holmes's house later that night the driver would later testify quote it was clear that he was frightened end quote and that brady was obviously hiding something in his jacket you know i can't think of many other things that would be as awkward to hide under a jacket than a full grown arm well no you just what you would do is you would tuck one of your arms behind and just oh and then put the arm in the sleeve itself yeah what if he's like nice to meet you man and it'll be like the wrong hand like if it's yeah how are you smith's wife who smith had told he was going fishing grew nervous when he didn't return after a few nights one night a man called her and said quote don't worry jimmy will be home in three days time end quote of course jimmy smith never returned days later the shark at the koji aquarium vomited his arm on may 17 brady was arrested on forgery charges which were merely a way to keep him in custody authorities interrogated him for six hours but he refused to admit anything it was only after the police questioned his wife that brady agreed to make a statement brady implicated holmes in smith's murder and when police questioned holmes he claimed to not know brady a few days later holmes took a speedboat out in sydney harbor along with a bottle of alcohol and a pistol the facts of the following trip are described in various ways but with a grain of salt the gist of it goes like this holmes got drunk on the boat and shot himself in the head with the pistol another man who was out boating with his children reported almost being hit by the erratically moving boat when talking to police the man said quote you won't mistake him he has a bullet hole in his forehead end quote for you see holmes survived the gunshot which knocked him into the water now with a gunshot wound in his head holmes climbed back into his boat and tried to drive back to sydney harbor police boats chased him for four hours until he eventually caught him holmes reportedly told police that he had been shot by strangers and was trying to escape he apparently claimed he thought the police in pursuit were the people who shot him which is why he didn't stop it's hard to know what holmes was really thinking because again he had a bullet hole in his head this guy apparently felt well enough to go on a four-hour boat chase yeah i mean he seemed to be doing like you i would think maybe it would really mess you up and like you'd live but you know you're clinging to life but this guy is like yeah this guy's looking back it's crazy holmes allegedly said to police quote jimmy smith is dead and there is only another left if you leave me until tonight i will finish him end quote holmes claimed that instead of brady's story accusing him of being the organizer of the plan to kill smith he had actually been extorted by brady brady had surfaced at holmes's house with smith's severed arm and attempted to blackmail him claiming he'd pinned the murder on holmes's instructions holmes said that brady had murdered smith cut his body up put the pieces in a trunk and threw the trunk into gunamata bay in the 20s and 30s this act was apparently so common that it had a name the cindy send off take a look man otherwise i'll be giving you a cd center you know it's in this end-off holmes told police he paid brady the blackmail money who in turn left the severed arm in holmes's living room holmes claimed he then panicked and threw the arm into the ocean where it was presumably eaten by the shark that was eventually caught and placed in the aquarium police said they would charge holmes with being an accessory to the murder unless he agreed to testify against brady at the inquest into smith's murder set for june 12th holmes agreed and on the morning of june 12 holmes was discovered in his car with three bullets in his chest this time dead one thing to gather from this too is brady definitely was the one who had the arm okay however you want to talk your way around that one that's that seems to be the fact whether he was doing it for someone else whether he was doing it on the orders of homes or he was doing it to then say i'm going to blackmail homes yeah is the question i suppose brady's trial still went on but without holmes to serve as witness the case fell apart brady's lawyer argued that according to a british statute from 1276 a body was necessary to conduct an inquest and a limb could not be considered a body the defense also argued that sharks typically digest food within 24 hours yet in order for the prosecution's timeline to be correct the arm would have had to been in the shark anywhere from 8 to 17 days the defense also claimed it was possible someone had thrown the arm into the pool where the shark was kept at kuji aquarium and that it was never in the shark at all the prosecution came back with ichthyologists fish scientists who said the arm could have upset the shark's digestion and impeded its function they also brought forth 14 witnesses who said they watched the shark vomit up the arm did you guys see the shark vomit up the arm yes [Music] [Laughter] after a day and a half brady was acquitted and released a sydney newspaper reported quote of course you are innocent mr brady but please don't do it again mr brady end quote i just have no life just having a little life now i've noticed your australian character why does he why is he tied it up like this what's that it's a choice i've made don't do it again [Laughter] quieter and quieter quieter and quieter so i can't even understand what you're saying with that it's time to look into some theories about what actually happened to jimmy smith the first theory is that holmes story to police was correct and that brady murdered smith and tried to extort holmes this is bolstered by the idea that brady could have contracted holmes's murder so he couldn't testify however at brady's trial defense attorneys pointed out that brady was only 5'4 making it unlikely he could have killed smith alone of course his small stature wouldn't have prevented brady from using a gun but because no body was ever found it's impossible to know how jimmy was actually killed well what do you think about that because holmes said he was going to testify against brady saying that brady had done the whole thing and then the day of the trial he gets killed so that obviously does not look good for brady no so i don't think it's like good to gloss over that fact that's a major hurdle i feel like you need to kind of confront so very gutsy very gutsy i mean he still got off because of the whole the arm wasn't attached to a body thing yeah i know i know that but um very gutsy to to make a move like that when obviously tends to point back at you which brings us to a second theory no one killed jimmy smith because no body was found we cannot definitively say smith was murdered it's possible he didn't want to bow to the pressure of holmes's criminal activities and wanted out but didn't think he could do so safely so he faked his own death admittedly this theory seems unlikely as smith could have probably gotten away with just a severed hand instead of an entire arm do you think he would be capable of cutting off his own arm i mean he obviously would have had help yeah he was probably from his wife yeah because if he's faking his own death it's obviously they're in cahoots yeah they're going to go live a life somewhere together so he probably had her you know do the little tourniquet very sweet to be in cahoots with your wife i mean that's kind of part of the bargain right yeah i guess you don't hear that come up in vows very often sickness and in health and cahoots i would say that sickness includes missing an arm or having to cut one off yeah very sweet okay sorry honey you're gonna have to cook my home off i don't like this character anymore a third theory suggested by australian legal historian alex castles states that smith was indeed killed at brady's cottage but that brady was not involved some years after the case brady's wife said she had gone to the cottage thinking she would catch her husband with another woman instead she overheard a group of men playing cards and drinking castles believes brady was out fishing and came back to find jimmy already murdered according to this theory brady never said anything about his former friend's murder out of fear of retribution our final theory the only one that i can see has a clear motivation is that holmes orchestrated smith's murder remember how smith was the caretaker of a yacht that holmes owned the pathfinder the pleasure oh i forgot about the pleasure boat your buddies get back to the pleasure boat yeah yeah yeah oh that was good that's actually good that you set that up and then i got so wrapped up in this crazy story that i forgot about this wonderful pleasure boat and now i'm reminded why i'm glad you forgot because you were way too excited about it excited to hear about the pleasure vote tell me about the pleasure it turns out holmes and his associates had purchased insured and destroyed the boat as part of an insurance scam holmes however never received his insurance money as smith had reportedly become a police informant telling authorities that the yacht's destruction was suspicious this coupled with smith's reported blackmailing of homes over their check-forging scams could have led holmes to arrange with brady to have smith killed once brady murdered smith he brought the arm to homes as proof holmes would have disposed of the arm in the ocean where a particularly unlucky shark happened upon it in this theory holmes actually did get away with one last insurance scam police suspected that holmes had contracted hitman to kill himself after buying a generous life insurance policy his wife and children would get the money and not have to endure the sinking embarrassment of his various crimes surfacing holmes's wife reportedly knew what happened to smith and was about to share this information when she died mysteriously in a fire in 1952 it should be noted that brady didn't die until 1965. do you think he got nervous when he read in the paper that a shark had vomited out an arm yeah like his wife came to him look at this hilarious headline and he's like a shark is vomiting i got to make some calls ah that's real funny sweat just sweat just dripping down his face when bert hobson and his son fished a tiger shark out of the ocean they were trying to lure attention to their floundering aquarium what they actually hooked was a mystery that would draw the attention of the entire country and end a local criminal's life as for how jimmy smith's tattooed arm finally found its way into the shark that remains unsolved one thing to mine from all of this or to fish from all of us um is that if it wasn't for that pesky little shark holmes would have got away with all of this friends murder each other all the time you know that happens that's away the world it happens i gotta you know i gotta make some calls just gonna watch what you're saying okay take a look you're gonna appreciate what you're hearing you don't think you're still doing it yeah [Music] you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 6,774,587

Keywords: BuzzFeed, Buzzfeed unsolved, SffZ, australian shark arm, australian shark attack, boats, case, cold case, creepy, crime, criminal, detectives, eerie, investigate, investigation, investigative, monster, murder, mystery, paranormal, ryan bergara, scary, shane madej, shark, shark arm case, shark arm murders, shark arm murders australia, strange, supernatural, theories, true crime, unexplained, unsolved, unsolved mystery, weird

Id: N-FqJzC3tA8

Length: 18min 32sec (1112 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/purplefebruary]

I can't with Shane's Aussie accent

[u/MikeTD]

These sea-puns, my god...

[u/asharx3]

Alright, we need a name for Shane's Austrailian gangster. He can be Ricky Goldsworth's partner in crime.

Also, the animations/graphics were on point this episode. Shout out to the animators/editors!

[u/MiNdOfMiNdd]

COOCHIE AQUARIUM

[u/[deleted]]

I counted 18 sea-based puns in total. Goddamnit, Ryan

[u/cheapbutnotfree]

This graphic, holy shit.

[u/MambyPamby8]

Ok I'll admit, I was sort of stoned watching this one so I may have missed some info but I know the story from a podcast previously but... Is this really an unsolved true crime? I get that it's not technically solved but it seems pretty evident one of the two guys did it. I expected some sort of mystery or elusiveness but nah. Still hilarious to watch and interesting case to hear but I wouldn't class as unsolved. Shane's Aussie accent had me howling. Plus the puns. SO MANY PUNS 😂

[u/nickir27]

It was a mistake to sit down to watch this as I was eating my Chipotle dinner.

[u/guiltybyproxy]

I watched this a few hours ago lol. Driving a boat with the wind going through the bullet hole 😂